The astronauts got it right the first time. It was 1971 and Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell peered through the small window of their spacecraft and saw a 360-degree panoramic view of the Earth, Moon, Sun, and the stars.”
I found a 1929 Graphic issue at the National Library in Manila. Reading through it, one thing immediately stood out: Some articles were without bylines.
While from the standpoint of a layman, government bureaus seem to be working smoothly the year around, still auditors detailed to look over records have unearthed grave anomalies that have existed for the past few years and yet kept secret by their directors.
It was the 30th of July when I finally found the first-ever Graphic issue. Amid the careful sound of shuffling pages in the background that ran against the noise of my mouse clicks, I was sure that I paused for a long time admiring the cover displayed on the screen—dashes of striking red on the clothing of a Mindanao man riding a horse.
AUGUST 6, 1927 — IF THE Laoag-Vintar irrigation project has proved a disappointment to Representative Confesor and other public officials, it has, so far, proved nothing but a tragedy to the people to whom the government sought to extend a helping hand—the farmers and landowners of Vintar, Bacarra and Laoag, Ilocos Norte.
Long before anybody ever thought of building such a thing as the Laoag-Vintar dam, the farmers of Vintar...
In A Memoir Published In The Coffee-Table Book The Philippines: Spirit of Place (Department of Tourism, 1994), Gilda Cordero Fernando—short story writer, essayist, publisher, theater producer, collector of antiques (“with me you don’t say what’s new but what’s old”), visual artist with her own distinctive style, New Age guru and I don’t know what else—traced her roots to Pagsanjan, Laguna.
TRIBUTE — On September 26, the Filipino literary titan, maestro of the Philippine short story, and former Graphic editor Gregorio C. Brillantes passed away at 92.
It looks like it’s going to be a long haul when you scan the country, or even just this part of town, from the corner of Taft and Padre Faura—a long dazed journey, not to “Philippines 2000,” the splendiferous miracle promised FVR’s faithful a mere seven years from now, but to reality of NIChood probably a century hence.